“Thanks,” Eric told him, and he reallywasgrateful. He scooped up the sleeping kittens and placed them gently in their top-loading crate. The inside of the crate featured a thick, soft bed, and if he was careful and timed it right—no more than two hours of napping in the crate—he could manage to get both kittens to their litter box before anything untoward happened.
Right now, it kept them from being underfoot, which, given that the RV was not exactlyspacious, was what he wanted.
“Have you decided yet?” Ernie asked when they were situated with a glass of milk each and theamazingcinnamon rolls between them on the RV kitchenette table.
“Decided what?”
Eric was inhaling his pastry reverently, breathing softly in.
“Whether to move into the house,” Ernie said patiently, and Eric nodded in acknowledgment before pulling off a piece and dipping it in milk.
He took a bite that was like an explosion of innocence and lust on his palate and made sounds he would have been ashamed to make in bed.
Swallowing almost left him drained.
After another deep breath—and a tentative bite of the pastry to see if it was just as good as the first (it was)—he relaxed a little and met Ernie’s patient gaze.
“Was this to talk me into it?” he asked.
Ernie shrugged. “You made an impression at the barbecue. Sonny is already asking if he can visit the kittens, and while he’s a grown man and can take disappointment, I like to cushion the blow a little.”
Eric blinked. Sonny Daye,definitelynot his real name, had been… interesting. Eric knew that there was something fundamentally broken in himself, something that made killing no big deal, that left him absolutely oblivious to the suffering of his fellow human beings once they’d passed a certain line in the sand.
Sonnyshouldhave been on the other side of that line, except Sonny had never killed another human being outside of battle.
Ever. His lover and protector, Ace (also not his real name), had shielded him from that choice.
Sonny was, for all intents and purposes, an innocent psychopath.
Eric rather enjoyed the little man’s company. He was like a small, misbehaving dog. He was a good dog at heart, but he had… intrusive thoughts. Eric rather desperately wanted the good dog to win out. That meant there was hope forhimas well.
And Sonny really loved the kittens.
“What would I have to do?” Eric asked, not even sure he knew who to contact to buy the house he was currently squatting next to. Hell, he had no idea how this entire cul-de-sac functioned—there was power, water, even trash services, but to quote a movie, they wereout in the middle of the fucking desert! How did you apply for a lease on a house in a cul-de-sac in the middle of the fucking desert?
“Tell Burton and Jason,” Ernie said, seemingly oblivious to Eric’s grimace.
If Burton was one of the scariest motherfuckers Eric had ever met, Jason Constance hadtrainedthat man, and he wasalsoa scary motherfucker. Both of them were military, Eric waspositive. Some sort of special operation. But also both gay and living out here with their boyfriends.
He should have been looking for munchkins and a field of poppies while he was here.
“They both own this place?” he asked uncertainly.
“Well, Burton bought our house from a real-estate company that probably fainted, and then Jason supplied power and water and got services running, and then they both pooled their resources—don’t ask. I’m sure you don’t want me to know about your money. Same. But this place is theirs. So you ask, you pay them whatever they think is fair, and, you know, maybe don’t fill in your pool. Or if you do, make it available, but seriously….” He grimaced. “Jason keeps his full, and since he and Cotton are only here for the weekends—”
“Anybody can use it,” Eric said, nodding. “You told me that. Does it get used a lot?”
Ernie snorted softly. “Yes. Wealluse it. Even Sonny and Ace, on their day off.”
They ran a garage across the highway from a filling station/Subway/mini-mart. They had a little house on the same property, and a tiny little dog—which is probably where Eric had gotten the analogy—and Eric got the impression that they’d started this little gathering in the desert and were quite surprised to find they were now surrounded by/responsible for other people.
They seemed to have just wanted to run their little garage and live their little lives, but Ace was meant for more than that, and he couldn’t seem to squelch that sense of responsibility, of leadership, in himself.
Of all the people Eric had met in this little corner of the desert, it wasn’t the scary military motherfuckers that Eric was afraid of dealing with. It was Ace.
“So their day off is….” he said, not sure if he’d be at the pool because of Sonny or not at the pool because of Ace.
And of course, he’d forgotten he was dealing with a psychic.
